ANSA news

Croatia: Tito's name stripped from square in central Zagreb

Fri, 01/09/2017 - 12:15

(ANSA) - ZAGREB - The name of Marshal Josip Broz Tito,
anti-fascist leader, partisan and undisputed leader of Communist
Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death in 1980, was stripped
Friday from one of the most beautiful squares of central Zagreb,
the capital city of Croatia, dedicated to him 71 years ago.
The decision to rename the square, where the National Theater
and the university headquarters are located, was approved by the
local coalition led by Milan Bandic, now independent populist,
but former Social Democrat and member of the Communist Party .
In June, Bandic was reconfirmed Zagreb mayor for the sixth
consecutive time in a row, but without a majority at the
municipal assembly. In order to be able to rule, Bandic had to
reach an agreement with a new far-right party which urged him to
remove the name of Tito from the square, which is now dedicated
to the Republic of Croatia.
The dispute over the opportunity to maintain the name of the
communist leader, who was born in 1896 in Croatia and belogend
to Croatian ethnicity, has lasted for years. Right-wing
organizations insist that Tito was a communist dictator and is
held responsible for the deaths of thousands of Croatians at the
end of World War 2, when his victorious partisans executed
nearly 20,000 soldiers of the Ustasha regime, but also a few
thousand civilians fleeing from communism. On the other hand,
Marshal Tito represents the glorious face of the anti-fascist
struggle of the peoples of former Yugoslavia and one of the most
important personalities in Croatian history.
Left-wing forces see this decision as a further proof that
Croatia is in the midst of a deep-seated revisionism of WW 2
anti-fascism, which is increasingly is increasingly being held
upas an example of totalitarianism and prelude of Communist
dictatorship.
(ANSA).

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